The process of infant pain assessment.

This study describes the process pediatric nurses used to assess pain in 0- to 12-month-old infants. Qualitative analyses of open-ended interviews with 40 pediatric nurses with from 1 to 20 years of experience produced an infant pain assessment model. This model explicates a "principle of consolability" and describes how nurses apply this principle, using comfort measures, in assessing pain of preverbal infants. Because this model makes processes involved in infant pain assessment explicit, it can be useful in teaching nursing students or novice pediatric nurses and in formulating hypotheses for further study.